The todies are a family, Todidae, of tiny Caribbean birds in the order Coraciiformes, which also includes the kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers. The family has one living genus, Todus, and one genus known from the fossil record, Palaeotodus.
Taxonomy and systematics
The todies were originally placed in the kingfisher genus Alcedo before being placed in the genus Todus in 1760 by Mathurin Jacques Brisson. They have been linked to a large number of potential relatives since then, including nightjars, trogons, barbets, jacamars, puffbirds, kingfishers, motmots and even some passerine species such as broadbills, cotingas and flowerpeckers. The todies were placed in their own order, Todiformes, before being placed in the Coraciiformes.
The phylogenetic relationship between the six families that make up the order Coraciiformes is shown in the cladogram below. The number of species in each family is taken from the list maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela C. Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC).
Distribution and habitat
The todies are endemic to the islands of the Caribbean. These are small, near passerine species of forests of the Greater Antilles: Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba, with adjacent islands, have one species each, and Hispaniola has two: the broad-billed tody (Todus subulatus) in the lowlands (including Gonâve Island), and the narrow-billed tody (Todus angustirostris) in the highlands.
Description
Todies range in weight from 5 to 7 g and in length from 10 to 11.5 cm. They have colourful plumage and resemble kingfishers in their general shape. They have green heads, backs and wings, red throats (absent in immature Puerto Rican, broad-billed, and narrow-billed todies)
Their preferred habitat for foraging is in the forest understory. Todies typically sit on a low, small branch, singly or in pairs, keeping still or stepping or hopping sideways. When they see prey moving on the lower surface of a leaf, they fly a short distance (averaging 2.2 m in the broad-billed tody and 1.0 m in the Puerto Rican tody),